If these early reports are indeed factual, then there is definitely a lot more going on with Nadal than meets the eye here. So he's spent the last few weeks training hard, a mystery stomach virus arises in the days before his supposed comeback and now because of this said virus, he is now consequently withdrawing from the Australian Open? In my opinion there is no way he is pulling out because of that. It's either the knee is still bothering him or he is mentally not ready to compete again. The thought of permanently damaging his knees combined with the lofty expectations of him upon his return to action may be overwhelming him a little....

Fully agree, no way it's the virus. There is two weeks and few more days, plus he normally he shouldn't struggle much against R1 opponent however rusty, so he would have nearly three weeks to shrug it off, unless it's pneumonia or something like that.

__________________“There’s so many athletes, tennis players around the world,” he continued, trying to put his life into some kind of perspective, “they want to be the best in what they do. They want to succeed. Many of them, they don’t succeed in the end. I’m fortunate to have this opportunity and succeed.”

It does seem very odd to pull out so early. One of the fittest players you will ever see, but he can't handle five sets because he won't have played any warm-up matches? And he's got over two weeks to train between now and the AO, but he definitely can't make it because he's got a stomach bug? It does seem an odd and premature decision unless there's more to it than meets the eye. He's not even ill now, he says in his statement that he couldn't practice last week because of it. You would think he'd be dying to get back on the courts, he claims his knee is absolutely fine, but won't go to the AO because it's a 5 set tournament? This seems rather unlikely.

I don't want to spread rumours but my brother had told me last week-end (don't know from which source but my brother is a Nadal-fan) that Carlos Moya had said somewhere that he had practised with Nadal recently and his movement didn't look good at all, his practise seemed to be still limited.

Now, I would much prefer Nadal's team to tell precise news than me to spread rumours

Well, people will make up their own minds and that is natural. To me, I think it's pretty obvious that the virus has played a very small part in this withdrawal. It has given him the PR excuse of stating that it has prevented him from preparing for the AO adequately and without the necessary match practice he cannot play to the best of his ability. I believe there is so much more going on inside his head presently and he is mentally not ready to compete at the moment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slice Winner

Sorry, I couldn't understand this post because it didn't contain the word 'mate', mate.